CSBS Kudos
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
December 2009
The faculty of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences continually distinguish themselves in
quality teaching, scholarship and service.
CSBS Kudos, published twice every semester, is meant to highlight these accomplishments and
make colleagues in the college and across campus aware of the great things being done in CSBS. By
sharing the ideas, interests and contributions of faculty, we hope to sustain a sense of community
among the teacher-scholars of UNI.
Kudos to:
Laura Kaplan (Social Work) serves on the
Council of Social Work Education Council on Sexual
Orientation and Gender Expression. She is both the
co-chair of the group’s education committee and a
consultant on the CSWE survey on lesbian, gay, and
transgender faculty experiences.
Richard Featherstone and Steven Briggs
(Criminology) are working with the Black Hawk
County Sheriff’s Office and Pathways Behavioral
Services, an area substance abuse and mental
health treatment center. The project will use crime
mapping to examine whether there is a spatial
relationship between violent crime and businesses
that serve alcohol.
Carolyn Hildebrandt (Psychology) was the
program chair for the Association for Constructivist
Teaching conference in Mexico this fall. It was their
first international, completely bilingual conference
and included Spanish- and English-speaking
particpants from across the US and Mexico.
Jim McCullagh (Social Work) was recently
honored with a special award from the Iowa School
Social Workers for his work as editor of the Journal
of School Social Work. He also continues to head
the Iowa Department of Human Services training
project at UNI.
Mark Grey (Anthropology) was presented,
along with Michele Devlin of HPELS, with a One
Iowa Award by Iowa’s lieutenant governor. The
award recognized the pair’s promotion of cultural
understanding and mutual respect among Iowa’s
ethnic populations.
Cindy Juby (Social Work) supervised research
students conducting interviews with individuals
that were involved in the Postville raid. She
subequently wrote an article and presented her
findings at the Council on Social Work Education in
San Antonio in November.
Pita Agbese (Political Science), Carol Cook
(Social Work), and Xavier Escandell (Sociology)
shared their internationally focused research
and service with the President and Provost at
the college’s annual meeting in October. Agbese
consults on civil-military relations in West Africa;
Cook supervises students traveling to Nicaragua to
study individual and community development; and
Escandell studies the political and social concerns
of non-European migrants.
Ramanathan Sugumaran (Geography) has
received a grant from the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency to study real-time predictive
framework for mosquito-borne diseases.
Reinier Hesselink (History) received a Japan
Foundation Fellowship for study in Japan this
year for his book manuscript, The Rise and Fall of
Christian Nagasaki, 1560-1640.
Donald Gaff (Anthropology) directed the
archaeological field school at Hartman Reserve
Nature Center in Cedar Falls this summer. This
year’s students will be organizing and presenting
the results at an archaeological symposium this
fall. New finds included the remains of a fire pit,
some new types of pottery (about 1,600 years old),
arrowheads, and other items.
Rob Hitlan and Cathy DeSoto (Psychology)
will travel with two undergraduate students to the
annual meeting of the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology, held in Las Vegas in January. The
group will present two studies: Social Exclusion and
Racial Bias: The Impact of Testosterone Change and
Social Exclusion: The Impact of Perceived Similarity
and Testosterone on Group Relations.
Lindsay Cohn (Political Science) has a
forthcoming article, titled “It Wasn’t in my Contract:
Civilian Control and the Privatization of Security,” in
Armed Forces and Society.
Laura Praglin (Social Work) received a Clarke
Chambers Travel Fellowship to conduct research at
the Social Welfare History Archives, University of
Minnesota.
Linda Walsh (Psychology) serves on the steering
committee of the Iowa Teachers of Psychology,
which organizes an annual conference for all levels
of Iowa educators: high school teachers, community
college instructors, faculty from colleges and
universities, graduate students.
Kudos to CSBS faculty awarded
Professional Development Assignments
for 2010-2011!
Trudy Eden (History), Spring 2011: Botany in
Early America
Annette Lynch (Textiles and Apparel), Fall
2010: Porn Chic: Exploring the Contours of Raunch
Eroticism
Donna Maier (History), Academic Year: Rwanda
Genocide Witness Testimony in Four Systems of
Justice: Evidence as Historical Record
Scott Peters (Political Science), Spring 2011:
Constraints on Campaigning in Judicial Elections:
The Effects of the Canons of Ethics on State Supreme
Court Campaigns
Mitchell Strauss (Textiles and Apparel), Spring
2011: History of a Small Textile Mill in a Small
North Carolina Town—The Intersection of Jewish
Entrepreneurship and Textile Manufacturing in
Twentieth Century United States
John Williams (Psychology), Fall 2010:
Development of an Online Teaching and Research
Laboratory Using Flash
Otto MacLin
and Kim MacLin
(Psychology)
recently attended
a conference in
Ireland where
they presented
their research
on eyewitness
identification to the International Society of
Psychophysics. While walking down the street in
downtown Dublin, they passed a large bookstore
that was displaying the MacLin’s textbook in the
storefront window. The book is in its 8th edition
and has been translated into Turkish, Chinese,
and other international editions.
Faculty with PDA this year are
Fall: Cathy DeSoto (Psychology), Kim MacLin
(Psychology), Otto MacLin (Psychology), and Dave
May (Geography)
Spring: Donna Hoffman (Political Science)
Academic year: Mark Grey (Anthropology)
Kudos to those continuing the progress
of Sabin Hall! Above: The old lecture hall
has been fitted with beams to support
a new floor of space for faculty offices.
Left: The new lecture hall, moved one
floor below its old location, takes shape.
The tiered seating will be oriented
toward the windows, which face the
Union and will be fitted with movable
panels to create the projection surface.
If you have a notable achievement you’d like published in an upcoming edition of CSBS Kudos,
send the information to holly.bokelman@uni.edu. Then watch for the next edition!